


Endless Rivers

by Bayyvon



Category: Blindspotting (2018)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, I mostly just wanted to fuck with Collin’s head ok, Nightmares, dont come for me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 07:20:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15881274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bayyvon/pseuds/Bayyvon





	Endless Rivers

“You sure you’re fine takin’ ‘im?” Ashley asks for what Val thinks is probably the hundredth time since she and Miles had arrived. “I mean, Ian’s still so little, I—“

 

“Ash,” Collin grabs her hand, as if trying to calm her racing thoughts with only his loving smile and his familiar grasp. “Y’all need this. We’ve kept Sean before. He loves Ian. They’re fine. We’re fine. Go. Have fun. We’ll call in the mornin’ yeah?”

 

“Alright,” The slighter woman peers around Collin to catch sight of Sean, in all his wild haired glory, pretending to be a dinosaur and cautiously stomping behind a squealing toddler. “Sean, baby,”

 

He looks up, a bright smile on his face as he pushes between Collin and Val to hug his parents. “Love you, Momma.” He says into her stomach. Miles reaches over to card his fingers through his sons hair, adoration coloring his eyes a sharp green when the eight year old playfully shoves away his hand but still hugs him tightly anyway. 

 

“Be good for Collin, y’hear me? If I catch wind’a any bull—“

 

“Miles!” Ashley bats at his chest, fighting a giggle. 

 

“What?” The blond rolls his eyes, watching as Ian makes his way towards where everyone has congregated.

 

“Go on, now. We gotta feed these boys ‘n that’s not happening with you two hooligans standing around instead of celebrating your anniversary.” Val bends at the waist to pick up Ian, who waves happily at the couple. 

 

“Night, guys.” Collin waves them out the door, watching them decend down the stairs.

 

When he returns to the table, Collin finds Val giggling at Sean, who is very enthusiastically recounting a dramatic retelling about what he thinks might be the night Miles fell down the stairs of their apartment. He kisses her on the head as he passes, and begins to make plates for the two boys. Sean has begun making faces at Ian, who continues to stick his tongue out and blow raspberries at his godbrother. 

 

Getting them to bed (yes, you can have a glass of juice, please lay back down, boys do we have to separate you?) makes Collin thankful he only has one kid. 

 

The boys had long since been tucked in when Collin is roused from his sleep by the buzzing of his phone. 

 

“Collin? Who is it?” Val murmurs as she rolls over. 

 

“Prolly just Miles n Ash needin’ a ride...” Collin says as he wipes the sleep from his eyes and unlocks his phone.

 

_”Mr. Hoskins?”_

 

A stern voice on the other end of the line has Collin bolting upright. 

 

“Yes?”

 

_“This is Officer Farmer, from the Oakland Police Department...._

 

 The dark haired man feels the world tilting on its axis as he digests the information he’s being given at breakneck speed. 

 

“Col?” Val sits up, placing her hand on his arm. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

 

“Let me... uh,” Collin swallows loudly. “I’ll. Be there as soon as I can. Thank you...”

 

“Collin?” Val asks as she watches her husband slowly gather his clothes.

 

“Miles and Ashley,” his voice cracks. Betraying him just when he needed it most. “There was a... they were... they’re..”

 

Val feels her heart still in her chest. She watches as Collin’s broad form begins to tremble. He finally chokes out a wrecked sob. He pulls on his shoes and says he’ll be back around a mouthful of grief. 

 

 

 

 

The sight of their bodies splayed out on cold sterile tables sits in Collin’s chest. Lives there like fucking shranpnel. Can’t seem to get away from it. 

 

Tries running. 

 

Finds Miles’ death blown eyes staring at him everywhere. 

 

Tries sleeping. 

 

Can hear Ashley screaming, tears streaming down her face as her chest explodes, only to piece itself back together like some sick jigsaw puzzle.

 

YOU

 

DID THIS

 

YOU DID THIS

 

YOU DID THIS

 

YOUDIDTHIS

 

YOUDIDTHISYOUDIDTHISYOUDIDTHIS

 

“Aw, Sean you did this?”

 

Val is holding something up. It blurs through Collin’s peripheral until it comes sharply into focus as a magnet secures it proudly to the fridge. 

 

It’s a doodle of them all, labeled respectively as Dad, Mom, Collin, Val, Ian, and Me. The rendering is cheerful, bright colors casting them all in a way that feels too soft for the images of Collin’s best friends covered in their own blood that seeps into his damn skin like acid.

 

Sean asks twice about going home.

 

About his mother. 

 

And Collin just can’t find it in himself to lie. He feels his resolve crumble the way Sean does. Collapsing into Val with denial in his mouth and dripping from his eyes in endless rivers. The same rivers Ashley stares him down with night after night, screaming in his face that he made her son an orphan. 

 

He knows he didn’t. Couldn’t have. It’s not like he was the one that held the gun pop the cap pull the trigger and flung clips through their windshield. 

 

He can see Miles, slumped across the steering wheel. Eyes wide. The horn honks endlessly. Blood seeps into the paper of the cigarette that’s tumbled to the floorboard. 

 

“Have some tea.” Valarie looks concerned. Probably should be. Probably is. 

 

The horn fades into the screaching of the kettle that his mother had given him. 

 

Had held her up as she choked into his shirt collar that the little blond bright eyed kid she’d helped rear was snuffed out in a hail of glass shards and warped metal. 

 

He decides not to tell Mrs. Jones that she had outlived her grandson. He doesn’t want to know what her cries sound like as they rip through her bird bone frame. 

 

The locker room is uncomfortably silent in Miles’ absence. The guys bore holes into Collin’s uniform with their pity. No one says a word as memories spill into the bag at his feet. They don’t erases Miles name. It wobbles in his jagged handwriting like it’s still got a heartbeat. 

 

“Hey, man,” Marcus, tall and round and eyes full of concern as he claps Collin on the back. “Maybe you should take another day off?”

 

Collin shakes his head, trying to ignore the way the shrapnel shifts, scraping the walls of his chest when he catches hints of Miles’ cologne. 

 

“At least the little fucker can’t steal my lunch now.” Jason snickers. 

 

“Yeah or whack me with a fuckin’ chair.” Pete cracks a smile over the rim of his glasses. 

 

“Remember the Christmas party a couple years ago?”

 

“The one with the—“

 

“Yup!”

 

“The fuckin’ tree?” Collin feels his mouth stretch across his teeth to create something that might be a smile. 

 

“Lit the whole goddamn thing on fire.” Jason shakes his head. 

 

 

His new moving partner is too fucking quiet. Lets the radio linger on static for longer than she should. He hums to himself as he lifts and tries to ignore the way white girl with a shaved head— he squints at her name badge and sees that it says Charlotte in loopy cursive— looks at him as if he’s about to come unhinged. 

 

 

It hits him as he returns the truck that he has no idea what to do with Sean. Can see his best friends staring up at him every time the kid cracks a smile as Val ushers him out the door for school. 

 

He wonders where Sean goes from here. 

 

Does the system snatch him up and cycle him through?

 

Does Mrs. Jones take him in for as long as she can and he just keeps changing hands as frail old women die off and brothers Miles never spoke to tell him no?

 

Or does he stay exactly where he is? He’s Collin’s godson for fucks sake. This is where they wanted him if. 

 

 

Collin stops to vomit into a potted plant. 

 

 

He doesn’t sleep that night. Just keeps hearing Miles’ peel of laughter echoing off the walls. Until the laughter morphs into screams and they break him and break him and force their way into his chest until he feels exposed and raw and sits on the bathroom floor, curled in on himself like a child.

 

Val drags him back to bed after that, letting him curl around her like he was scared she would dissipate if he didn’t. As if his body could keep her safely anchored to the world. 

 

When her alarm goes off, she makes her way into the kitchen, makes a pot of coffee and a phone call. 

 

Collin does not dream. 

 

In a way, it’s almost worse. One second Miles is screaming and the next, it’s fading into the background noise of the city. Like it never happened. 

 

He rolls over and sees the clock staring him in the face. 

 

12:17

 

Holy shit he was late. 

 

A note is taped to a glass of water and a handful of ibuprofen. 

 

_Baby,_

_Don’t panic. I called in for you._

_-V_

 

He breathes a sigh of relief and stares up at the ceiling.

 

This couldn’t be his life. 

 

Just when the world had no longer felt like it was spinning too fast for him to get his feet beneath him, he’s upended again and free falling always wondering if or when he’s going to hit the ground. 


End file.
